Command and Control of India’s Nuclear Arsenal

Despite long-standing debate about the challenges of establishing command and control of India’s nuclear weapons, few details about the structure and organization of such a system exist in the public domain. Objectives for effective command and control have been laid out in India’s Draft Nuclear Doctrine of 1999, which was followed by the more official statement from 2003 that described some of the organizations governing the new arsenal. It is now almost twenty years later, and many changes have occurred within Indian nuclear force structure. This article documents these evolutions and details some of the similarities and differences between how nuclear weapons might be controlled in India as compared to states that developed nuclear weapons earlier. It specifically examines some of the relevant infrastructure and capabilities, such as military command centres, satellites, and delivery vehicles, that have been developed in the last two decades that are important to nuclear command and control. This article also identifies continuing challenges, such as risks due to the entanglement of conventional and civilian infrastructure with nuclear systems, associated with command and control of nuclear weapons in India.